The team behind Milk and Honey are Lani Purkis and Teresa Patterson. The two have a wealth of music industry experience between them, from management, promotion, and booking, to performing, teaching, and mentoring.

While working on other projects over the past 12 months, they all began thinking about how wonderful it would be to create a series of shows where the majority of musicians and crew were women and decided it was the perfect goal for International Women’s Day 2019.

They have three key aims:
- To celebrate the incredibly talented women who work in all facets of the New Zealand music industry;
- To make female artists and crew visible to younger women, and encourage them to see many different possible roles they could find for themselves in the music industry;
- To provide a safe, inclusive, respectful festival and gig environment.

“We really wanted to create something where younger girls and women have someone to look up to and aspire to, and something where women are very clearly visible in all parts of the event.”